FALL COMMENCEMENT

With pomp, circumstance and a lot of shouts and cheers, East Carolina University celebrated its 111th fall commencement for nearly 2,300 students Friday morning on campus inside Williams Arena at Minges Coliseum.

“I think we all agree that it is a great day to be a Pirate,” Interim Chancellor Dr. Ron Mitchelson told the crowd, thanking family, friends and faculty for helping the students reach the milestone.

Shaina Schreuder, who earned her Master of Business Administration, and her daughter Adalyn. Schreuder was pregnant with Adalyn when she started at ECU.

For Shaina Schreuder, earning a Master of Business Administration has been a five-year journey, one she started while pregnant with her first daughter, Adalyn. And two more children have arrived along the way.

“We’ve more than doubled the size of the family since I started!” said Schreuder, who hopes to start her own business.

ECU’s university studies program helped Joshlynn Walton earn her degree more than a decade after she started.

“I was here back in 2005,” she said. “I took a break — life happened.”

The former Marching Pirate now works at Central Piedmont Community College and was able to finish her degree with online classes, earning a bachelor’s with a concentration in guest services and administration. She now plans to pursue opportunities in professional development, creating programs for workforce training and talent development.

Steven Glincosky of Jacksonville, a nursing major, earned his second degree from ECU on Friday. The 31-year-old received his first bachelor’s degree in criminal justice in 2012.

Helping people and making a difference in their lives has always been important to Glincosky. That and job security was a winning combination, he said. “There’s been a lot of late night study sessions, coffee runs and early morning clinicals,” Glincosky said.

Elizabeth Boyd helps Steven Glincosky get ready in Minges Coliseum prior to the university commencement ceremony.

He’s looking forward to working in the operating room at Vidant Health in Greenville.

Fellow graduate Elizabeth Boyd of Ayden will be working with Vidant medical oncology. She also earned a second degree from ECU; her first was a bachelor’s in music with a concentration in music therapy in 2005. A wife and mother, she worked as a mental health case manager for eight years then took time off while raising her daughter, Sarah, who is now 10.

“I just felt this was the call. I love it because of the learning aspect and being able to help people out in their most critical time of need,” Boyd said. “I grew up wanting to do something in the medical field, but I let somebody tell me I wasn’t smart enough. This is coming back full circle.”

Education major and summa cum laude graduate Sarah Lewis of Greenville will be teaching first grade at Ridgewood Elementary School in Winterville.

The South Central High School graduate entered ECU intending to go into the medical field because she likes working with people but switched her major to education — where she still gets to work with people. So did fellow graduate Nicole Sanderford of Clayton, who planned to major in nursing her freshman year.

“I’m very happy I switched, and I do feel prepared to be a teacher because of what I’ve learned at ECU,” said Sanderford, who will teach fourth grade at McGee’s Crossroads Elementary in Benson, one of the schools where she did her student teaching.

Now both are looking forward to working with young people. “Their little minds work so much better than ours,” Lewis said. “They’re fun,” Sanderford added.

Nearly 2,300 students graduated during the 111th fall commencement.

Heather Whitt shares an embrace with her grandmother, Manuela Castillo.

Dr. Laura Gerald, president of the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust, provided the keynote address, telling students about growing up “on the wrong side of the tracks” in Lumberton, going to Harvard, becoming a doctor and eventually state health director, and then heading a fund that provides $24 million in grants annually to improve the health and quality of life of vulnerable residents in the state.

“Say yes,” she told the graduates. “Pursue opportunities, especially those that take you in the direction of your dreams.”

She said her life included unexpected twists that pointed her in a direction she was meant to go.

“You cannot even run from your destiny,” she said. “Your purpose will find you. The problem is your journey will likely be marked by challenges and failures, but no worries. Fail upward.”

Fight to solve problems, both big and small, Dr. Laura Gerald, commencement speaker and president of the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust, told graduates.

She encouraged the graduates to serve their communities and to fight to solve problems both big and small.

“We need you young people in the fight,” she told them. “Tonight, you can go out to dinner with your families, party just a little bit with your friends, but tomorrow wake up, go to work and join the fight. We need you to say yes, fail upward and solve problems, and I promise to work together with you to make things better for our families, our communities, our state and our nation. If we can do that, we will indeed make this world a better place.”

GRADUATE PROFILES

Salatiel Carreno turns his tassel during the university ceremony.

READ MORE GRADUATE PROFILES: